The Impact of Science-Oriented Content for Children on Destabilizing Creed: The 'Daheedh' Program as a Case Study

The formation of a child's mental perceptions during their early developmental stages is one of the most critical frontiers that parents must guard. The content a child receives is not merely fleeting information; rather, it constitutes the building blocks upon which their creed and worldview regarding the universe and life are constructed.

The danger lies in presenting scientific content that adopts atheistic materialist philosophy under the guise of entertainment or popular science, as observed in some recent programs directed at youth. These aim—whether directly or indirectly—to entrench concepts that clash with the foundations of faith, including:

• Attempting to convince the child that the story of creation in the Holy Qur’an is not a historical fact, and claiming that human origins trace back to evolution from lower beings, thereby denying the unique creation of Adam, peace be upon him.

• Entrenching the idea that miracles are relative matters, and denying the existence of a transcendent Divine power that governs this universe.

• Attributing the observable precision and design in the universe to speculative hypotheses such as 'multiverses' instead of attributing them to the greatness of the Creator and the perfection of His power.

• Presenting empirical science as an arbiter over religion, such that speculative theories are believed and prioritized over definitive texts of Revelation.

The long-term goal of these media practices is to gain the child's trust and build an emotional bond with them, so that the content presenter becomes a 'childhood companion' in their eyes. This makes it difficult in the future to convince them of the incoherence or deception of this content, as a psychological barrier forms that prevents them from accepting criticism directed at those figures.

Therefore, educators must be wary of programs that transform religion in a child's consciousness into a collection of ancient myths, and they must ensure that children are connected to the correct realities of faith and science that do not contradict primordial nature (fitrah) or Revelation.